


Maybe, When You're Older, Final

by ANaTHEMaDEVIsed



Series: Maybe, When You're Older [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23305822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANaTHEMaDEVIsed/pseuds/ANaTHEMaDEVIsed
Summary: Finally older.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen
Series: Maybe, When You're Older [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674520
Kudos: 40





	Maybe, When You're Older, Final

**Author's Note:**

> So goes the thing in my head.
> 
> Disclaimer:
> 
> All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work belong to their respective owners. As this material is an interpretation of the original and not for profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

“How about, Kara spends two nights a week and one night on the weekend at Alex’s.” Knowing that for any habitual practice to become therapeutic, it couldn’t be reactive or sporadic, Kelly was spurred to suggest a formalized schedule. She reasoned that the inclination for Alex and Kara might be to turn away from each other, deprive each other of this newly discovered connection. 

“You’ve found solace in each other.” Kelly had said, looking at Alex and Kara in turn. “Take it.” And very little else had changed beyond the determination that this was the new way of things. Certainly there were still game nights with friends, family dinners with J’onn. But the schedule was implacable, a boulder planted in a riverbed, and their lives continued to stream around it. Those three nights a week were a certainty, and maybe it’s that - not just to sleep soundly nursing in Alex’s arms, but the promise of it, that had introduced a calm Kara never felt before. That tide of panic which always seemed to be cresting inside of her had finally started to ebb.

In fact, life had become decidedly placid for the routine. Such soul-settling peace was a bounty, reaped and reinvested in the kind of hope that one may devote to uncompromising honesty. Thus on some nights, Kelly was there too. Her presence added a greater sense of normalcy and acceptance for Alex in particular. And Kara no longer felt as though she had been excised from Alex’s flesh. Kelly’s presence became a balm, the warm, sheltering palm of her hand over the wound. She let them heal. 

There had been calm and clarity enough, even the strength to openly disclose this newness, this necessary change to Eliza. Alex had struggled to explain it was intimate yes, but it wasn’t about sex. Eliza, who was in all things measured, steady, was for once explosive. Her palpable disappointment had rendered Kara inarticulate. 

“You’re still our mother.” Alex had spoken softly, while Kara sobbed. 

“You’re still my babies.” Eliza words caught painfully and she placed a steadying hand to her chest, an affectation so often Kelly had seen Alex perform. Kelly said nothing to intervene, had only wished to lend the support of her presence. There was no proper way for her to mediate when this was as much her disclosure of acceptance. Eliza departed in the middle of lunch, abruptly terminating her weekend visit to National City. She excused herself without hugs, repeatedly shaking her head as though hopeful this action alone could physically wipe their admission from memory. She departed unable to meet either Alex or Kara’s gaze. And for seventy-two hours after, there wasn’t a car accident, mugging, or apartment fire that escaped Supergirl’s notice. Meanwhile, Alex drank and Kelly quickly became adept at recognizing this regimen of desolation to which Eliza’s girls so dutifully adhered. 

“She’ll throw up.” Kara said. She’d knocked then let herself into theloft, not waiting for Kelly to get up from where she sat in the kitchen. Kelly had made her way over to Alex’s after work and had spent her evening sipping luke-warm tea while reviewing performance testing data for the latest revision of Obsidian Platinum on her laptop. And Alex drank. Kelly was quite comfortable with Kara’s navigation of the boundaries of Alex’s privacy; enough so that Kelly remained disinclined to question this demonstration of freedom to pass directly up the stairs to the loft where Alex had retreated with a half-empty bottle of Bulleit hours earlier. “She always does, when it’s … like this.” Kara untucked the blankets and lifted Alex from the bed. She stirred, mumbling incoherently and made only a weak attempt to extricate herself. Kelly followed to stand in the doorway as Kara conducted Alex back down the handful of stairs to the bathroom. 

“There are times when I think anything can be fixed with a little precision.” Alex had roused to semi-wakefulness and was already kneeling before the commode with a queasy look on her face. “If I were to count the number of times Eliza has said I love you, would I know precisely how much she did before we told her about …” Kara swallowed, looking equally prepared to empty her stomach of its contents. “If I’d known it wasn’t enough, how much she loved me before, to reconcile this, I never would have …” Told her? - Kelly wanted to ask, or was Kara offering an even greater sacrifice than the confession upon which the sisters now behaved as though they’d erringly gambled. Kara shook her head, haunted, unable to look directly at Kelly. She stared at her hands and then the bathroom rug, a spot on the wall, a bruise on Alex’s bare hip. Kara looked everywhere as though searching while not knowing what it was that eluded her.

“We’ll all get better at this.” Eliza’s eyes appeared red-rimmed in the video conference. She’d been calling for two days since that disastrous lunch but Alex and Kara had been otherwise occupied. She hadn’t offered a promise that it would be okay and Kelly admired Eliza for embracing so difficult a truth. And in turn she’d committed with certainty to the potential that it could, nonetheless, improve. A month or so after, Alex watched Kara barely finish a whole pizza at game night. She’d caught Kelly’s eye in hopeful surprise, and received a near imperceptible affirming nod in response. Kara had also started to pull back from her patrols as Supergirl, encouraging the now exceedingly deep bench of superheros available to take her place. And most notably, she’d started to paint again, flowers at first. There are so many kinds.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing has been sublime in its utility to organize my thoughts or exorcise them as necessary.   
> I do not write under the presumption that I retain any practical knowledge of these subjects. I write because I'm curious about them and through writing hope to learn something.  
> Thank you for taking the time to read, kudo, and comment.


End file.
